My New American Life (Paperback)

Description

Lula, a twenty-six-year-old Albanian woman living surreptitiously in New York City on an expiring tourist visa, hopes to make a better life for herself in America. When she lands a job caring for a rebellious high schooler in wealthy, suburban New Jersey, it seems that the American dream may finally be within reach. But things take a sinister turn when Lula's Albanian "brothers" show up in a black SUV to remind her that all Albanians are familyand that Lula's family has a very serious favor to ask.

Set in the aftermath of 9/11, My New American Life offers a biting and darkly humorous portrait of an era when dreams and ideals began to give way to cynicism, fear, and still-resonating questions about what it means to be an American.

About the Author

Gustav Janouch (1903-1968) was a young poet whose father worked at the same insurance company as Kafka. A certain amount of controversy has been aroused by his "Conversations with Kafka" some have been skeptical that any human being can talk the way Kafka does in this book, but both Max Brod and Dora Diamant considered it authentic.

Praise For…

“Prose is dazzling in her sixteenth book of spiky fiction, a fast-flowing, bittersweet, brilliantly satirical immigrant story that subtly embodies the cultural complexity and political horrors of the Balkans and Bush-Cheney America.” -Donna Seaman, Booklist (starred review)

“Utterly charming. Savvy about the shady practices of both US immigration authorities and immigrants themselves... Entertaining, light yet not trivial, a joy to read.” -Lionel Shriver

“Prose’s characters in MY NEW AMERICAN LIFE are complex and brilliantly drawn (culturally distinct but without the usual clichés).” -Simon Van Booy, Bomb Magazine

“A tangy mixture of satire and sentiment. . . . Ms. Prose uses her heroine’s outside status to make a lot of funny . . . observations about the cosseted life of well-to-do Americans.” -Michiko Kakutani, New York Times

“Prose . . . is, as always, sharply intelligent.” -NPR.org

“Prose succeeds by transforming anxiety into compassion—it’s a little lever that gets tripped when we truly imagine what another person feels.” -Los Angeles Times

“There has been a lot written about the Bush and Cheney days, but rarely from such an amusing perspective . . . at once honest, complicated, sexy, funny and—ultimately—uplifting.” -BookPage

“A superb novel . . . a wickedly entertaining read. . . . Prose is on top of her game . . . the fluidity of the prose surpassing, I think, her work in Blue Angel.” -The Millions

“Prose spins the many straws of American culture into a golden tale, shimmering with hilarious, if blistering, satire.” -Helen Simonson, Washington Post

“My New American Life is—happily—vintage Prose: cheerfully pessimistic, smart, funny, with characters unnervingly spot-on in their stages of outrage, denial, malaise or disillusionment.” -Miami Herald